‘Rebecca’ still moving forward

Broadway rehearsals planned for next week

It’s looking as if the Broadway production of musical “Rebecca” is still a go, despite the latest in a string of fundraising disruptions and lingering doubts raised over the current situation.

Although the show’s reps hadn’t received any confirmed timeline from producers, an email from the show’s stage manager went out to the cast setting a rehearsal start date for Oct. 1. Rehearsals, initially set to begin Sept. 10, had been postponed earlier this month when lead producer Ben Sprecher announced that a major investor, on tap to shell out $4.5 million of the musical’s $12 million capitalization costs, had died.

Questions have since been raised over the true identity of the purported investor, whom Sprecher has subsequently said he never met in person. The producer isn’t responding to press inquiries, but he’s stated in the past that he wouldn’t move forward again with the tuner until all of the $4.5 million hole in the budget has been filled. Whether it has or not remains to be confirmed.

The show’s current uncertainty, which has been a major topic in the Broadway rumor mill in recent days, isn’t the first time “Rebecca” has hit roadblacks on the road to production. The musical, based on the 1938 novel that inspired the 1940 Hitchcock film, was originally aimed to land on the Rialto last spring, but lead producers proved unable to raise all of the show’s capitalization. Earlier a potential London production also had been scuttled.

A new Broadway performance schedule for “Rebecca,” which was to have opened Nov. 18, remained to be announced.